Significant facts about
Sayreville history by Ed Pytel, Sayreville Historian
Largest Munitions Production Facilities
Childhood Home of Entertainment Celebrities
The Listing of the Sayre & Fisher Reading Room on the National and State Registers of Historic Sites
The first settlers in the Sayreville area were tribes of the
Navesink Indians that lived along the South River where
the Jernee Mill Road is located today. This historic fact
was documented by A. Vanderdonck, a Dutch surveyor
and map maker, on a New Jersey map he made in the year
1656.
During the 20th century, amateur archaeologists have found thousands of Indian artifacts along the Jernee Mill Road on
or near the Indian settlement site shown on the 1656 map.
The Sayreville Historical Society Museum has framed exhibits
of some of the arrowheads and pottery shards found in the Sayreville area.
The early settlers in the Roundabout area of Sayreville
included the Ebenezer Price family in 1780. They
established and operated a pottery on the southside of
the "S" shaped Raritan River.
Ebenezer’s sons, Xerxes and Ebenezer, Jr. ran the pottery
and made high quality stoneware. Price Pottery jugs, jars
and bottles were utilitarian storage vessels used by merchants
and housewives to store water, apple cider, fruit, honey,
flour, sugar and other items.
Clay for the pottery and wood for fuel for the kiln were
obtained from the family owned property. A one gallon
jug sold for about 15 cents in 1830. The Price Pottery
was one of the early makers of stoneware in our country.
Sayreville was involved in early aviation history when the
first hot air balloon flight in America landed in 1830 on the Johnson’s farm in South Amboy, in the present Sayreville
area. The farm was located on the corner of Ernston Road
and Washington Road in the Emma Arleth School area.
The Boston Courier newspaper described the 30 mile flight
in their September 16, 1830 edition. The flight was made on September 9 and originated at Castle Garden in Manhattan,
NY. The three hour flight was made by Mr. Charles Durant.
During the early 1830s, Sayreville was involved in another
first type of transportation. It was the Camden & Amboy
Railroad that ran from South Amboy through Sayreville
along Bordentown Avenue. It was the first railroad in NJ.
The Camden & Amboy train engine was called the "John
Bull" that traveled at an average speed of 10 miles per hour.
The train was in operation from 1833 to 1865 and is presently
on exhibit in the Smithsonian American Museum of Natural History at Washington, DC.
A one mile long canal was built in Sayreville in 1825
to by-pass an "S" shaped section of the Raritan River
to reduce sailing time to the very active South River
shipping docks at Little Washington, NJ. The town of
South River was called Little Washington at that time.
The schooners would pick up fruit, wood, bricks and
clay products for delivery to New York City markets.
The 100 foot wide canal was dug by hand in less than
two years.
In 1850 James R. Sayre, Jr. and Peter Fisher came to
Sayreville, formed a partnership and started making
bricks in 1851. Their brick works was located next
to the Price Pottery along the Raritan River.
There were large clay deposits in Sayreville that were
excellent for brick making. The clay composition had
all the necessary minerals in the right proportions to
make strong bricks.
During this early brick making period, there were four
basic steps required: mining the clay, shaping the clay
into bricks, drying the brick shapes and firing the bricks
in a kiln.
The typical brick kiln, called a "stove" kiln, could hold
up to two million bricks. John Cunningham noted in his
book, Made in New Jersey, that the Sayre & Fisher Co.
released a production statistic of 178 million bricks in
1913. The Sayreville plant became the largest brickworks
in the world. Sayreville bricks were used in the
construction of many buildings in the eastern states that
included the Empire State Building in New York City
and the Statue of Liberty. The company closed its brick
manufacturing operations in the early 1970s.
Largest Munitions Production Facilities
In the early years of 1900, the DuPont Co. Started making
gunpowder in its Sayreville plant. The company expanded
its facilities and became the largest gunpowder maker in
the United States. This was the beginning of the chemical
industry in Sayreville.
It eventually became larger than the clay based ceramic
industry that was the prime developer of our community
for about 100 years. Nitrocellulose was the chemical used
for the explosive powder that was used in munitions by our
military services to protect our country.
In the late 1890s, the Brookfield Glass Co. constructed
a "state of the art" plant in the present Winding Wood
development area on Bordentown Avenue to manufacture
glass insulators for the new telegraph communications
business in our country.
For the first time in the glass insulator industry, semi-
automatic insulator making presses were used in a plant.
The Sayreville plant became one of the largest insulator
production facilities in the United States. The plant was
in operation between 1897 and 1922.
The scientists at Sayreville’s DuPont laboratory used
nitrocellulose, the same chemical used for gunpowder
and film, to make a paint for the automobile makers.
The new paint was so good that Henry Ford was able
to make cars on an assembly line. Now a car could be
painted in one day compared to 10 days with other paints.
The Sayreville DuPont Co. Plant became the largest
maker of car paints in the United States. The paint
was sold under the trade name, "DUCO".
In the 1910 period, silent movie scenes were made in
Sayreville for JUGGERNAUT and other movies.
The word juggernaut means blind devotion or irresistible
force. JUGGERNAUT, the film, is known for its famous
train wreck scene made at Sayreville’s Duck’s Nest
swimming pond. This recreation area is now called Bailey
Park and is located adjacent to the former Hercules Co.
plant site off Minnisink Avenue.
The same nitrocellulose chemical that was used for
gunpowder was later modified by the DuPont Co.
scientists to make film for the new silent movie
business.
The Sayreville plant made high quality movie film
and became the largest maker of film in the United
States in the early 1900s. Hollywood presented the
DuPont Co. with an Oscar Award in appreciation
of the high quality film made for the movie industry.
Childhood Home of Entertainment Celebrities
From the new Sayreville families of the late 1900s,
three young entertainers emerged as national TV,
movie and rockstar celebrities.
Jon Bon Jovi became and still is a national and international
rock and movie star. He continues to "wow" his followers
and to make hit records.
Greg Evigan became famous for his B.J. and the Bear TV
series and movies.
Another Sayreville raised entertainer, Dule Hill, has gained
national recognition as a TV performer, a Broadway actor
and a movie star. His role as Charlie Young in TV’s The
West Wing has gained him additional fame.
Edwin Kolodziej, a Sayreville native and a highly
decorated World War II veteran, appeared November
29, 2005 on the History Channel in the program,
Shootout. It depicted a World War II battle in Vezon,
France on October 21, 1944. Ed was an Infantryman
and Machine Gun Specialist with the 379th Reconnaissance
Scouts of the 95th Infantry Division that was part of
General George Patton’s Army.
Ed Kolodziej was recognized nationally and internationally
for his bravery and military astuteness in a battle with
German Forces. He narrated part of the documentary
noting his personal experiences and his squads courage
fighting a large enemy force that significantly outnumbered his squad of about 12 men.
The Listing of the Sayre & Fisher Reading Room
on the National and State Registers of Historic Sites
The Sayre & Fisher Reading Room structure is a two story
brick building that was constructed in 1883. It is located on
the corner of River Road and Main Street, about one-quarter
of a mile south of the Sayreville Historical Society Museum building.
It provided space for a reading room or library and a hall for
meetings and sports events. The brick structure was also
used to showcase a variety of Sayre & Fisher Brick Co.
products and colors for prospective customers.
The Reading Room Building is also special because of its use
of a very decorative terra-cotta plaque that permanently exhibits
in pottery the building’s use, the builder and the date of construction. The 3 foot by 4 foot terra-cotta plaque is located on the front
facade of the building and just below the peak of the roof.
The front of the building and the chimneys have decorations
of various sizes, shapes and colors of Sayre & Fisher bricks and
of local terra-cotta.
Bleeker, Sonia. The Delaware Indians. William Morrow & Co.,
New York, 1953.Boston Courier. September 16, 1830, page four.
Branin, M. Lelyn. The Early Makers of Handcrafted Earthenware and Stoneware in Central and Southern New Jersey. Rutherford, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988.
Christie, Samuel M. Middlesex Pictorial Vol. I, No.1, New Brunswick: Pictorial Publications, 1938.
Clayton, W. Woodford. History of Union and Middlesex Counties, New Jersey. Philadelphia: Everts & Peck Publishers, 1882.
Cross, Dorothy. New Jersey Indians, Report No.1. Trenton: New Jersey State Museum, 1965.
Cunningham, John T. Made in New Jersey– The Industrial Story of a State. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1954.
E.I. Dupont DeNemours and Company. Dupont, The Autobiography of an American Enterprise. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1952.
Guignon, F.A. and Others. Clay Products Cyclopedia. Chicago: Industrial Publications, 1924.
Martin, Alvia Disbrow. At The Headwaters of Cheesequake Creek. New Jersey: Madison Township Historical Society, 1979.
Mc Dougald, John and Carol. Insulators, Vol. I. Publishers: John and Carol Mc Dougald, 1990.
Ries, Ph. D., Heinrich. Building Stones and Clay Products. London: John Wiley & Sons, 1912.
Sayreville Historical Society. Ephemera from the Museum Archives.
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